About the Program

Guest conductor Noam Aviel returns to the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra to lead a program of dramatic storytelling through music, joined by Concertmaster William Shaub as soloist in Camille Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3.

The evening opens with Giacomo Puccini’s La Tregenda, an orchestral scene from his first opera, Le Villi, depicting a supernatural legend of spirits who seek vengeance on unfaithful lovers. Demirjian describes the work as an ideal introduction to the evening’s centerpiece, Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, another work built around a vivid narrative.

Between these two dramatic works, Shaub performs Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3, one of the composer’s most enduring concertos. The program concludes with Berlioz’s groundbreaking Symphonie fantastique, a work that helped redefine the possibilities of orchestral storytelling and remains one of the defining achievements of the Romantic repertoire.